Third baseman Travis Shaw slugged the first two home runs of his major league career and had four RBIs as the Boston Red Sox overcame another shaky start from Joe Kelly in an 11-7 win over the Tampa...

Clifford May: Hamas launches its rockets with one goal: genocide

BY CLIFFORD D. MAY

Israel, as its friends and enemies never forget, is a "one-bomb country." One nuclear weapon is all it would take to wipe out a nation whose territory is smaller than Djibouti, with a population smaller than that of Burundi - fewer than 8 million people, 20 percent of whom are Arabs who, by the way, enjoy rights denied to Arabs (not to mention non-Arab minorities) elsewhere in the Middle East.

Israel is surrounded by Muslim-majority states 650 times its size and 60 times its population. Most of those states refuse even to recognize Israel. Some go further. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, threatens genocide: "Israel must be burned to the ground and made to disappear from the face of the Earth."

Hamas' charter is equally blunt: "Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them)." Israel is a vital link in what the charter calls "the chain of Jihad." Hamas cleric Yunis Al-Astal elaborated in a 2008 sermon:

"Very soon, Allah willing, Rome will be conquered, just like Constantinople was, as was prophesized by our Prophet Muhammad. Today, Rome is the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital ... this capital of theirs will be an advanced post for the Islamic conquests, which will spread through Europe in its entirety, and then will turn to the two Americas, and even Eastern Europe."

Both Israel's friends and enemies are keenly aware that this is the backdrop against which Hamas launches its missiles. Many others choose to be oblivious. So you constantly hear journalists suggesting that the missiles that Hamas has been raining down on Israel from Gaza are merely a form of "resistance" to Israeli "occupation" - ignoring the fact that Israelis gave up their claims to Gaza seven years ago, removing every farmer, every soldier and every grave.

Commentators talk about the need for "mediation" between Hamas and Israel. What's to mediate? Stopping the attacks - more than 950 rockets were launched between Nov. 14 and 20, an average of one every eight minutes - stops Israel's counterattacks.

Hamas does not seek a two-state solution. No one who embraces the ideology of Jihadism can. Also from the Hamas charter: "There is no solution for the Palestinian question, except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors." At most, Hamas may accept a truce. During such a hiatus, Hamas will do all it can to prepare for the next battle.

Hamas commanders understand that when they wage war - and that's what missile attacks are - and when they commit war crimes - and that's what missiles aimed at civilians are - repercussions will follow. Israel takes great pains to spare the innocent, but Hamas uses Palestinian women and children as human shields. That, too, is a war crime.

Recently, despite Israeli efforts to block deliveries of advanced weaponry, Hamas received an estimated 100 Iranian-made Fajr-5 missiles - long-range weapons that can threaten not just Israeli villages near Gaza but half of Israel's population. Such missiles have been fired at Tel Aviv, while other missiles, M-75s to be precise (made with Iranian assistance), have landed just outside Jerusalem. Muslim clerics who routinely proclaim Jerusalem "Islam's third holiest city" have not expressed outrage.

If Iran's rulers acquire nuclear weapons, will they use them in support of Hamas? Might they transfer one or two directly to Hamas? I see no reason why not.

If Israel adopts a policy of "mutually assured destruction," America's policy vis-a-vis the Soviet Union during the Cold War, will that deter Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah? Let Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran's former president, answer that: "Application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel. But the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world."

President Barack Obama's response to the conflict has been admirably clear-headed. In Bangkok, he said: "There's no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders. So we are fully supportive of Israel's right to defend itself. ... If we're serious about wanting to resolve this situation and create a genuine peace process, it starts with no more missiles being fired into Israel's territory."

Hamas is serious about wanting to resolve this situation - but not through a peace process. It prefers a process that leads to victory, which means Israel's extermination or, failing that, what it calls "martyrdom." Iran's rulers share those aspirations. Both Israel's friends and enemies get that. Many others choose to be oblivious.

Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on national security. Email cliff@defenddemocracy.org.